Hillary Clinton to do NY fundraiser with man whose ‘only agenda’ is Israel

Then-Secretary of State Clinton meets Netanyahu at Blair House, DC, March 2012. State Dept photo by Michael Gross

On March 19, Hillary Clinton will be honored in New York by the American Jewish Congress. VIP table goes for $25,000; an individual can get into Cipriani for $1,000.

The Congress used to be a leading Jewish organization, but it folded four years ago and was reconstituted last year, by Jack Rosen. It’s his “show.” Rosen is a real estate guy who gave a lot of money to Bill Clinton’s campaign. And he’s devoted to Israel. The Forward reported that he gave money to the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in years gone by and raised questions about Obama’s support for Israel at a fundraiser for Obama at his house in NY in 2011 at which Obama then bragged on his support for Israel. Josh Nathan-Kazis of the Forward reported:

Rosen’s politics are driven by his support for Israel, according to New York Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “Jack Rosen is doing what’s right for Israel, and that’s his only agenda,” Sheinkopf said.

After Sheinkopf emailed Rosen to congratulate him on the fundraiser, Rosen responded: “It was a good evening for Israel.”

There is speculation that Huma Abedin, a close associate of Clinton and wife of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, was asked by Rosen to make the request of Clinton to speak at the AJCongress event. Weiner and Abedin live in a luxury apartment in a building owned by Rosen.

And you wonder why Anthony Weiner said there is no occupation. And why Obama was livid when the Democratic platform failed to say that Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish state. And why Hillary Clinton said she was 110 percent behind Israel and she would obliterate Iran if it attacked Israel. If you are in the mainstream media, you could say, These are all random facts. Haim Saban having one agenda, Israel, and Jack Rosen’s agenda, and David Cohen of Comcast being the head of the Jewish Federations in Philly and holding fundraisers for Obama… There is no pattern here. You simply cannot generalize about the importance of conservative Jewish money on the Democratic side because that is an anti-Semitic canard.

PS I have just been reading Double Down, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. About the last presidential campaign. It mentions Israel about four times, mostly apropos of Sheldon Adelson. Nothing about the Jerusalem floor demonstration at the Democratic convention or Obama’s desperate reversals on Israel post-2009 or Obama’s financial dependence on what he termed a “cabal” of liberal Zionists. I.e., zero pattern recognition, and a shocking abdication of the responsibility to inform. And Halperin’s father is a mainstay at liberal Zionist organizations– Mort Halperin. So he knows and he has political capital but for some reason won’t spend it. Heilemann is smart and liberal, but spineless.

About Philip Weiss

Posted In:

30 Responses

“Nothing about the Jerusalem floor demonstration at the Democratic convention”

That’s because it was a lot smaller than you’d like to believe. It took place in the middle of the day in a half-full auditorium, and even then, it wasn’t clear whether the protest was about that or about the addition of God’s name to the DNC platform, which is just as divisive an issue. When politicians mentioned Israel that night in their speeches, no one was booing.

Speak to the larger point, Hophmi. Did authors of a book on the 2012 campaign fail to inform readers of an important pattern inside the Democratic Party, which Hillary Clinton now seems to be following?

Hillary and Bill Clinton have always followed that pattern. Always. Clinton will get the neocons support because she is a neocon. No mystery there. She is great on domestic issues but a right wing warmonger on foreign policy. Much further to the wrong than Obama, Kerry, Biden, Romney,Rand Paul…not sure about Christie. But he has practically been thrown off the GWbridge by MSNBC with a cement block around his body. He is swimming with the fishes. Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow etc have been the Jury and Judge. They have convicted him.

Hillary Clinton is a neocon on foreign policy

February 20, 2014, 10:47 am

Sure Hophmi. God was the controversial issue, not Jerusalem. Keep telling yourself that. And I guess that was God’s rep telling the mayor to call it as approved despite the fact it clearly wasn’t.

It is absolutely not all about cash. Are we to believe that the behavior of the Senators who conducted the Chuck Hagel hearings was only about campaign money? Impossible. So what else is it? I’d like to see the mondoweiss team focus on this question. I think that shedding more light on the answers would have a very positive impact.

A) In context, Obama was clearly joking and being friendly. Playing up the myth/joke with the loaded term.

B) Shocker: potential Presidential candidate going to a fundraiser from a major donor. Those at dinner get access and can potentially influence the candidate’s positions. The US needs campaign finance reform. Film at 11.

C) The majority of the leadership at most pro-LGBT organizations (a civil rights movement that has thankfully been massively successful in recent decades, but sadly still has quite a road to go down) is gay. Donorship is high amongst prominent LGBT community leaders. Is this evidence of a conspiracy?

D) Mr. Weiss, very specifically, I’d like you to answer this: do you find it incongruous that you claim Diaspora Jews are well suited to their current societies (American, Canadian, etc.) but find something unwholesome about successful Diaspora Jews’ civic engagement? This very blog is a form of civic engagement, is it not?

Would you rather American Jewry ignore Israel? Wouldn’t *that* be a stranger thing, especially considering that Zionism and Israel have been a hot button issue for over a century? There is an Israeli state, the Kerry Framework has generated a ton of news, and most Jews have an opinion on this. If anything, the timing is such that you’d expect more civic engagement on the issue of Zionism within the modern US political framework, particularly considering the current European Settlements boycott and the BDS/anti-Zionist movement and the platform its received (i.e. recent NY Times coverage/Sodastream/ASA boycott)

Incidentally, Jack Rosen was born in Germany in a displaced persons’ camp in 1949. Anti-Semitism (per the ADL’s latest survey) remains at 12% nationwide in the US. Obviously, these factors support the Zionist project: that Jews, due to their unique historical persecution, require a sovereign ethnonational state of their own. Wouldn’t someone like Rosen whose life was affected by the Holocaust be expected to understand and support that?

E) Isn’t it weird to contemplate who Abedin and Weiner’s landlord is (was? I thought they’d split?) If you live in a luxury building in Manhattan, there aren’t all that many potential landlords.

F) If Israel were as unpopular an issue as you seem inclined to think (Israel’s general approval rating in the US remains around 70%, by far the highest in the region), then politicians would respond to that and wouldn’t seek out donors with strong connections to Zionism. This means the issue isn’t “conservative”, but rather “centrist” and “bi-partisan.”

TL;DR: Doesn’t Occam’s razor explain this without a need for a conspiracy? Zionism is a popular cause generally , a key issue for an affluent demographic, and a win-win for those involved.

It’s a Rube Goldberg device. The American Jewish establishment married Zionism, that’s the problem. The crazy uncle rightwingers then corrupted the political process with money. And even the sensible nephews, liberals like Halperin and Heilemann, are afraid to talk about this, though they know it’s a problem, because, Gosh, that’s my crazy uncle, and we sure don’t want to feed anti-Semitism.
Happily the Failed Iran War exposed the conspiracy for Joe Q. Public and the American Jewish establishment is transforming before our eyes lest MJ Rosenberg accuse them of dual loyalty again. And young brave Jews at Vassar and Swarthmore are claiming Jewish institutions as non-Zionist. (While Berkeley and Harvard undergraduates dither). This transformation will be too slow and too late to stop bloodshed in I/P, tragically. In large part because the wool was being held over Americans’ eyes by the good liberal nephews in the media.
If you donate to the site, we will be able to pay for great young journalists to convey the underlying human rights atrocities to Americans who are paying for it, thanks to the crazy uncles.

Here’s the biggest spot where you lose me: ” In large part because the wool was being held over Americans’ eyes by the good liberal nephews in the media.”

I just don’t think there’s ever been a conspiracy to hold down anti-Zionist opinions in the US. Full stop. I think that, as this very blog has linked (and been a part of) there’s been a rise in criticism of Israel as of late (a good thing insofar as it advances the peace process.) That rise is related to the ongoing Occupation and a reaction to the thoroughly unlikable Netanyahu government (and especially its right wing of Lieberman and Bennett.) Why there isn’t even more criticism? Israel remains largely popular with the US at large, and its creation is tied in the public mind to the Holocaust, which creates deep and enduring sympathy.

Before the latest Sodastream/ScarJo/ASA/Gaza protests which have flooded the media, you still could find criticism from Hitchens/Judt/Chomsky/Said/Finkelstein dating back decades. Regarding feeding anti-Semitism vis a vis Zionist commentary, that’s a real fear since there is overlap (though, obviously and to be clear, it is absolutely not inherently anti-Semitic to be anti-Zionist or to criticize Israel), and so words must be parsed clearly.

One bit regarding the crazy uncles: I assume you mean the politicians, domestic, abroad and Israeli, who sit to the right of the average American, the average North American Jew and the average Israeli on their position on Israel? Because I don’t think anybody (myself included) is a fan of Michelle Bachmann or Naftali Bennett. And if you’re referring to Citizen’s United… I utterly agree that we need campaign finance reform and that it would be a salve to many problems with the political process in 2014.

Anti-Semitism (per the ADL’s latest survey) remains at 12% nationwide in the US.

Which means real anti-Semitism must be far, far, far, less. (What is a percentage of anti-Semitism, anyway?)

Obviously, these factors support the Zionist project: that Jews, due to their unique historical persecution, require a sovereign ethnonational state of their own.

1) The Zionist project is NOT simply a Jewish-ethnocratic state– it’s an expansionist ethnocratic state which denies Palestinians human rights and equality (inside and outside of Israel proper) and crushes their national aspirations, an ever-expanding Jewish-supremacist state that denies that its founding required the ethnic-cleansing of indigenous inhabitants and which presides over an oppressive, apartheid-like occupation regime.

2) That expansionism is not necessary for a Jewish “safe haven,” therefore, it must be driven by some other motivation.

3) From what principles do you derive the notion that persecuted groups require “sovereign ethnonational” states of their own? Or does this notion only apply to Jews? If the latter, how can Jews be so different from all other humans that there is a principle of ethno-nationalism that applies to them and only them?

1+2) This is like saying that all Americans supported the Iraq War. The majority of Israelis support a two-state solution. Yair Lapid swept through the last elections on secularism and a two state solution which he claims to be at the heart of modern Zionism.

I agree that the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government has, at times, been deplorable. Palestinians deserve a state of their own.

3) Through history’s lessons, and this applies to many nations beyond the Jews. Distinctly persecuted groups deserve the right to be free and safe. The Roma, for instance, deserve a state of their own on a similar basis. The Palestinians, too.

”D) Mr. Weiss, very specifically, I’d like you to answer this: do you find it incongruous that you claim Diaspora Jews are well suited to their current societies (American, Canadian, etc.) but find something unwholesome about successful Diaspora Jews’ civic engagement? This very blog is a form of civic engagement, is it not? ”

I dont know if you’re a troll or just a poor deluded fool.
Lets start this way…how many times have the Jews been accused of being a nation within a nation and adversely affecting the nations they lived in?
Lets also say it didnt and doesnt matter if it was only their ‘leadership’s activities’ that brought this on them or not—–the fallout fell on all the Jews every time.
And it makes no difference if the canards were just canards or if they were true then or not, because it is true now of the Zionist Jewish leadership in the US.
And this was for centuries before Jews even actually had a foreign homeland to insert into the governments of the countries they lived in and demand support for.
Now we have zionism and the holocaust and Israel, which have combined to give you the insane idea that it is somehow your right as Jews to force your loyalty to Israel–which is a foreign country to all other people—- and all its cost onto the people and governments of other countries.
You can delude yourselves and ‘spin’ this as — -‘normal democratic civil engagement’ —-all you want—that isnt how other citizens of a country see it.

You are the deluded. referred to by Geo Washington below. The ‘jealous part’ of ‘human nature’ in men and populations own interest does not change. I am tired of explaining this human and historical ‘reality’ to you zionist. If it rises up to bite you in the ass you have only yourselves to blame.

‘’And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. ‘’

“But”? Liberals’ greatest fear is to be tagged “radical” and “out of mainstream”. That imposes a number of taboos, places where they cannot trod and words that they cannot utter. To paraphrase the running joke of Stephen Colbert: Israel — a great ally or the greatest?

Lately, among liberals Israel seems to be downgraded to “great”, although it is still safe to say “greatest”. More precisely, the spectrum runs from “greatest” to “great but not smart” (bravo, Tom Friedman, to be on the liberal cutting edge).

@ seafoid
Obama had some success in ’08 collecting small, online donations from millions of enthusiastic, lower income donors who he promptly forgot about after he was elected. It’s safe to say that the “little people” who donated to his campaign feel disillusioned and disenfranchised.

Agree, dbroncos. And by doing so Obama alienated a generation or more of idealism, participation, and/or nurture-able change agents dipping their collective toes into the political process.

By doing so he assured that big money would remain supreme. Cynical, or maybe realistic me believes that was the intention all along, whether consciously or subconsciously.

That’s going to be his legacy, with the close second being the institutionalization of the security state. I don’t think the negative effect of either can be overstated (not that that’s anything new or revelatory).

As a card-carrying resident of flyover country, philosophically and geographically, I sure would like to see the next US Prez hail from, say, the University of Colorado. That might be a refreshing change of pace. :) I don’t know. SOMETHING…

King Cnut (Canute) told the tide not to wet his toes, but it came in anyway. The tide came in before the king told it not to, and also after. However, the tide, though as powerful as climate change, isn’t and wasn’t harmful to humankind.

Neither talking to climate change nor ignoring it entirely will work. However, climate change may well wipe out the large life-forms on earth (including humankind), for the temperature may rise above what agriculture can tolerate, and there will be no plant0-life, hence no food. Do I exaggerate? Not knowingly.

What do Obama and La Clinton have in common? they are politicians and set in their ways.

There are some that never know how to change. Circumstances my change, but those people are never able to see that they have got to change too, to meet those circumstances. All that they know is the one beaten track that their fathers and grandfathers have followed and that they themselves have followed in their turn. If an earthquake come and rip the land to chaos, and that beaten track now lead over precipices and into morasses, these people can’t learn that they must strike out a new road–no; they will march stupidly along and follow the old one to death and perdition.

More sanguine predictions merely say that there will be a major change in the values of real estate: the tropical countries may become non-inhabitable, while Canada, Russia. Scandinavia etc. will gain most desirable location. Several billions of humans will be short of food, but as a species the humanity will adapt.

Oh, please. What do you want to understand that the decision has been made ages ago, eight more years of crimes against humanity and the Constitution? BTW, remind me of what Kennedy did with regard to the invasion of Palestine. The last gasp of dignity was in 1956.

War Monger Hillary will not be elected—-unless she lies better than she use to.
Cause when she starts the…’pay any price for Israel oath”…required by her backers —the public isnt going to go for it.

US Views on Iran Poll Results Offer More Bad News for AIPAC

by Jim Lobe

Just 11 days before the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the embattled organization got some more bad news, this time in the form of a Gallup poll suggesting that nearly ten years of effort in demonizing Iran in the U.S. public mind may be going down the drain. As Gallup noted in the lede on its analysis of the poll, “Half as many Americans view Iran as the United States’ greatest enemy today as did two years ago.”

Indeed, for the first time since 2006, according to the survey of of more than 1,000 U.S. adults, Iran is no longer considered by the U.S. public to be “the United States’ greatest enemy today.” The relative threat posed by Iran has fallen quite dramatically in just the last two years, the survey found. In 2012, an all-time high of 32 percent of respondents identified Iran as Washington’s greatest foe, significantly higher than the 22 percent who named China. Beijing has now replaced Tehran as the most frequently mentioned greatest threat.” Twenty percent of all respondents cited China, while only 16 percent — or half the percentage of respondents compared to just two years ago — named Iran (which was tied with North Korea).

This is a significant setback for the Israel lobby and AIPAC, which has made Iran the centerpiece of its lobbying activities for the past decade and more, and it should add to the consternation that many of its biggest donors (as well as members) must feel in the wake of its serial defeats on Chuck Hagel, Syria, and, most importantly, on getting new sanctions legislation against Iran last month”

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.